AN: First I must apologise for the very long delay since the last chapter. Those of you who have been to my live journal account will know why. To be brief, there was a bereavement in my family at Christmas, which knocked back my writing for several weeks. However, I am now back on track and normal, slowish, service will be resumed.
This chapter is the last really tough chapter for Jack. Things will improve significantly for him from now on. I promise! I'm probably playing fast and loose with the facts about addiction and drug treatments. Please suspend your disbelief, if I have got things very wrong.
Chapter 18
Jack sat in the back of the SUV, between Tosh and Ianto. An hour before, he would have felt trapped to be in this situation, but now he felt protected. Protected from UNIT at least, if not from the demons in his own mind. He leaned his head back, and absorbed the unfamiliar feeling. But he knew it would not last. He could already feel the memories welling up. Any hope of delaying the pull of the drugs, had been lost when he got so close to his goal.
The journey back to the Hub was short and quiet. Jack was grateful that the others did not start demanding answers immediately.
b_b_b_b_b
Back inside the Hub, Owen headed to the medical bay to sort his arm out. Gwen was there, looking groggy, Joanne standing by her side. Mark had contacted them from the doss-house, letting them know what had happened, and that the others were on their way back.
Tosh, Ianto and Jack followed Owen into the room. Seeing Gwen, Jack blushed with shame. He walked up to her hesitantly. "I'm sorry Gwen. I hope you are OK now."
Gwen looked at him sadly. "I'm fine Jack, no harm done. But why did you do it? What possessed you to go out looking for drugs?"
It was the question he'd been expecting, and all the team were gazing at him, waiting for his reply. He thought about making up a lie; that he hadn't been looking for drugs, but had been forced to the drug den by the UNIT men. But how would that help in the long run? He knew he needed help. He couldn't go on making himself vulnerable, and helpless, by using heroin. He had to kick it, and he knew from bitter experience that he wasn't capable of doing that on his own.
The team had proven to him, today, that they were on his side, and would go to extremes to protect him. He should trust them with this. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to speak. "I'm still addicted, I can't cope without heroin and I'm heading for a major crash if I don't get any."
This announcement was met with stunned disbelief.
"But, how can you be?" stuttered Gwen. "You went through withdrawal. We all saw."
"There can be significant cravings after physical withdrawal, Gwen," Owen pointed out. "But they are usually a lot less debilitating than the withdrawal itself."
"Not for me," Jack admitted. "The part after physical withdrawal is a thousand times worse than that."
"That doesn't make any sense," Owen mused aloud. "Does it Joanne?" he asked.
"It's certainly not the usual pattern," Joanne agreed. She turned to Jack. "You've obviously gone through this before. Tell us exactly what happens."
Having made the decision to admit he couldn't cope, and ask for help, Jack was totally honest. "I can cope for a day or so after the physical withdrawal, but then memories start crowding into my mind, and as time goes on they become more and more vivid. The only thing that stops them is the heroin. Eventually it gets so bad that I'll do anything for a hit. And I mean anything." He shuddered, remembering what he had done in the past.
The others were understandable horrified by this, as they knew only too well the type of memories that might plague Jack.
"Have you tried to get past it, without taking anything?" Tosh asked.
"Oh, yes," Jack answered bitterly, thinking of the endless times, in the UNIT prison, that he had been forced to betray Torchwood's secrets, or sell himself for a hit. "I just couldn't do it." And that couldn't continue, he knew. He had practically handed himself over to UNIT on a plate because of his addiction.
Tosh moved close to him, and put her arm around him gently, ready to let go if he gave any hint of unease.
"I want to kick it, but I need help," Jack blurted out. "Will you help me?" he looked around desperately at the team.
"Oh Jack, of course we'll do everything we can to help you," promised Ianto, the rest of the team adding their reassurances to his.
"OK," Owen started, "Gwen, go home and get some rest,. Come back in for the night shift. Joanne, go sleep in the bunker, we'll need a doctor on duty round the clock, and the other on call. We'll take turns. I'll sleep there later."
Gwen was about to argue that she didn't want to leave Jack, but she could see that someone had to be ready for the night shift. So she held her tongue, and with a farewell smile to Jack, headed off home.
b_b_b_b_b
The UNIT soldier, who had been sent to fetch the van, arrived at the street where the doss-house was situated, just as the Torchwood SUV pulled away. They passed right by him, and he saw Harkness in the SUV with the others. "Fucking hell!" he exclaimed. The mission had clearly gone belly up, and the higher ups were going to be totally pissed with the team that let it happen. They had been under orders to call for backup, the instant Harkness was sighted. But they hadn't done so, as he was alone, and they wanted the credit for catching him. They were in deep shit.
Parking the van, the soldier approached the address where he'd been told to pick Harkness up. He needed to find the others, and find out what the hell had gone wrong. Since three of the Torchwood team had been in the SUV, there probably weren't many of them left here. Entering the house cautiously, he crept up the stairs, ready to act as a junkie looking for a fix if he ran into trouble.
Reaching the first landing, he got a glimpse into a room with the door kicked in. It was all he needed. His mates lay dead, and one of the Torchwood team was going through their pockets. Backing away quietly, he left the house, got in the van, and got the hell out of there.
b_b_b_b_b
Jack had headed off to his room to rest, while Owen and Joanne combed medical journals on the internet, looking for heroin withdrawal symptoms similar to Jack's. They were having no success. No one had recorded symptoms as strong, and of the type, Jack described. The two doctors were at a loss. The only thing that they could come up with was using methadone, as they had intended to previously. Methadone acted to help the physical and psychological effects of heroin addiction, so should help Jack with the psychological aspect that he still suffered. Of course it would physically addict him to methadone, which was bad news, but Jack seemed far less worried by physical addiction.
b_b_b_b_b
While the doctors were searching the medical journals, Mark checked in. The cleanup crew had removed the bodies, and would simulate a car crash responsible for killing all three men. The coroner would turn a blind eye to the bullet holes in their car crash victims, and definitely not order a tox screen on any of the bodies.
Mark had thoroughly searched each man, and found a complete absence of ID or any personal items, other than a key. The key was typical of thousands of keys to flats and houses, and had no distinguishing marks. Their weapons were not standard issue for any military or police organisation. So, no clues to who, or what, the men were, or where they were staying. It looked as if they'd have to take Harkness's word that they were UNIT personnel, at least for the moment.
What worried him particularly, was the speed with which Harkness had been picked up, after leaving the Hub. He'd obviously been targeted specifically. The men must have been watching the Hub. But why, from where, and for how long? He would need to comb the area for hidden surveillance equipment when he got back to base.
b_b_b_b_b
Tosh and Ianto sat in Jack's room with him, while they waited for Owen and Joanne. Watching him closely, they could see him flinching minutely, though he was trying to hide it.
"Are you getting flashbacks now?" Ianto asked him with concern.
"Yes," Jack admitted, "they started even before I left the Hub. They're getting much more frequent now, and more real."
"And they originally started when you got addicted to heroin?" Tosh asked. "You never got them before that?"
"Well, I obviously had a lot of bad memories before that," Jack answered wryly, "but I never relived them in my head, as if they were real and happening right there and then." His voice broke. "I can't deal with it. I want to forget the Valiant, and everything that came after it, or at least bury it so far down in my mind that I can ignore it. But I can't, and it's driving me insane!"
Guilt shot through Ianto. He wished desperately that he could make things right for Jack. "What about retcon?" he suggested. "Perhaps if you took enough to wipe out the last four years, that would remove your need for heroin."
Jack laughed bitterly. "Don't think I hadn't thought of that." He broke off suddenly, with a gasp that had nothing to do with the present, then continued. "No, retcon doesn't work properly on me. It can wipe out a couple of days, but, within an hour, it wears off and I remember again. My only chance would have been to get off the Valiant before time reset, but I wasn't allowed to." And that burned bitterly in his psyche. He could have been washed clean of all this agony. But no, no redemption for the Master's lackey.
Jack leaped off the bed suddenly, and started pacing. "Tosh, can you fetch Owen? Tell him I need something now." As he spoke, his pacing became more frantic and he clenched his hands into fists.
Hearing the desperation tinging his voice, Tosh rushed off immediately. It only took five minutes for her to return with Owen and Joanne. They brought methadone tablets with them.
"We have to be honest with you, Jack," Owen started, "you seem to be a unique case. We haven't found any record of this type of psychological withdrawal. But methadone has helped heroin users with psychological addiction before, so we can hope that it works for you." He paused, and then added seriously, "but be aware that there are no guarantees."
Having made up his mind to try to kick the heroin, Jack was not going to be deterred. He nodded brusquely and snapped "Let's just get on with it." Taking the pill that Joanne handed him, he swallowed it down dry.
b_b_b_b_b
When Mark got back to the Hub, he parked the SUV in the garage, and proceeded to systematically search for hidden cameras or listening devices. He found two cameras. They were tiny. No one, not specifically looking for them, would ever have noticed them. He cursed silently, wondering how long they had been watched. It could be UNIT. They were one of the few organisations that would have such sophisticated, miniaturised equipment. But why on Earth would they target Harkness, after he had been pardoned. It just didn't make sense.
If someone was watching this entrance, it was very likely that there was surveillance in the Plas also. He walked to the square and searched, but found nothing. Looking up towards the buildings overlooking the square, however, it was clear that there were many places from which the Hub could have been watched. Nothing was obvious, but they would need to follow it up as soon as possible.
Sighing, Mark headed down into the Hub to report to Owen.
b_b_b_b_b
Two hours after Jack had taken the methadone, he was still pacing frantically. Tosh was with him, Owen having belatedly remembered Joanne's advice, about women dealing with Jack when he was stressed.
Jack paced about the room, muttering. "It's done, I finally finished building it. But I can't use it yet." He looked agonised as he said that. "I have to wait, but, oh god, I don't want to. I want this to be over." He fell silent for a moment, then started muttering again. "No. Have to wait for the right time. Have to wait. Have to wait."
Tosh watched as Jack became more and more agitated. For most of the time he had paced silently, though flinching and occasionally gasping with pain. He had been holding his head in his hands, and yanking his hair. This was the first time that Jack had given a running commentary, as he relived a memory. She was grateful that, whatever this memory was, it was not one where Jack was with the Master. Despite that, Jack's next words hit her like a sledgehammer.
"Have to wait to knock out the Toclafane."
Tosh was stunned. She knew, of course, that someone had knocked out the Toclafane on the Valiant. But neither the EMP machine, nor the person who used it, had ever been found. It had been assumed that that person had been evacuated, and no longer remembered their crucial part in defeating the Master. But, if that person had been Jack, why hadn't he said anything. Surely it could have changed the whole outcome of his trial. No one would have countenanced locking up the man who had saved everyone!
She was jerked out of her reverie by Jack, who suddenly yelled. "It's not working. You have to help me."
It took Tosh a moment to realise that Jack was speaking to her, in the present, not reacting to a memory. He seized her by the arms in a bruising grip, and practically shook her.
"Please, you need to give me a fix," he pleaded. "I have to have something The methadone is doing nothing!"
"Jack, let go. Please Jack, you're hurting me," Tosh begged.
Jack let go as if scalded. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that," he whispered. He backed away. "Get out of here, and keep away from me! But tell Owen I need something."
Tosh nodded and left, the room gratefully.
b_b_b_b_b
Tosh rushed up to Owen's office. "Owen! You need to do something. Jack's getting worse. Shouldn't the methadone have kicked in by now?"
Owen had seen what had happened on the CCTV. He looked worried. "I thought it would have," he admitted. "Maybe we just have to give it more time."
"But what about Jack?" argued Tosh.
Trying to be positive for Tosh, Owen answered, "There were bound to be some traumatic times, like there were during his physical withdrawal. Jack's strong. He coped with the Master, this won't be anywhere as bad as that."
'Coped with the Master,' was not the phrase Tosh would have used to describe Jack's experience on the Valiant, but she understood what Owen meant. "We can't leave him down there alone. I'd better go back," Tosh replied.
"No. I saw what happened. In his current state, Jack might lash out and hurt you. I'll go down and reassure him, but then I think we should keep watch at a distance, on the CCTV." He turned to go, then remembered Mark. "Tosh, can you go help Mark hack into UNIT files. He has photos of the guys who grabbed Jack. We need to verify if they really were guards from his prison."
Tosh looked doubtful but said "OK, if you're going down to look after Jack." She waited for Owen's assent before she went to look for Mark.
b_b_b_b_b
At UNIT HQ, Colonel Oduya stormed down the corridor towards Major Stamford's office. He walked in, without knocking, and slammed the door behind him; though not without checking that it was firmly closed, before he started speaking.
"I just heard from the incompetent fools that we left watching Torchwood. They found Harkness, but, instead of calling in the retrieval team, they decided to catch him themselves. Needless to say, Torchwood have snatched him back, and will now be on alert for any further attempts. They have him in the Hub now, and God knows what he's telling them." He paused in his rant, long enough to register that Stamford had gone pale.
"No one outside the UK will care what happened to a convicted murderer, and traitor. I am leaving on an overseas assignment today," Oduya announced. "A last minute arrangement. I suggest that you do the same."
b_b_b_b_b
After Owen spoke with him, Jack reluctantly agreed to wait for a while, before assuming that the methadone wasn't going to work. Since that time, he had remained locked in his room, alone (at his own request). The others monitored him on the CCTV.
What they saw was grim. Jack was on a downward spiral, getting more and more desperate. Episodes of pleading for heroin, to the empty room, were interspersed with what were obviously memories replaying in his mind. He would speak to an unseen person, usually the Master, and then end up screaming in pain.
That was just the beginning. None of them had understood the true horror this withdrawal would entail. They watched, aghast, as Jack descended into hell.
After another hour, Jack started banging his head on the wall and clawing his arms, leaving long red furrows where he had torn his own flesh. He was practically incoherent, pleading and begging for someone to stop. They could all make a good guess as to who.
It was the last straw for Ianto. He couldn't leave Jack alone with his agony any longer. He looked at Owen fiercely. "I don't care what you say, I'm going down there now. Jack needs someone with him. Even if all I can do is stop him hurting himself."
Owen shook his head. "The state he's in, he could seriously hurt you. We need to do something else. Just let me think for a moment."
"I don't care," retorted Ianto. "This is our fault, and we need to do whatever we can to help him. Do you think that Jack would hesitate to help us!" He ran out of the room, and no one made a move to stop him.
b_b_b_b_b
Jack heard Ianto enter the room, and span around. Ianto could see desperation, tinged with relief, in Jack's eyes as he looked at him, though there was no recognition.
With no hesitation, Jack strode towards Ianto and, in a move that took him totally by surprise, he knelt down in front of him and unzipped his trousers. He had Ianto's cock in his mouth before the other man even realised what was happening.
"Jack, no, what are you doing!" exclaimed Ianto, with a strangled gasp.
Jack ignored him, and carried on licking and sucking. Despite himself, Ianto's body reacted and he hardened. By now Jack was deep throating Ianto, who was still trying to push him off.
Seeing what was happening, Owen ran down from his office, to Jack's room. He shouted for Mark on the way. Together they burst into Jack's room and pulled him off Ianto.
Ianto stepped back, legs shaking, partly from arousal, it was Jack after all, and partly from the shock. He adjusted his clothing quickly.
"Why the hell would he do that?" Owen asked, in dismay.
"Don't go," pleaded Jack as he was held between Owen and Mark. He was practically sobbing. "I will do whatever you want, you know that. Or tell Major Stamford I'll tell him anything he wants to know. Please, you have to give me a fix."
"Let's get him to the medical bay," Owen ordered.
b_b_b_b_b
Jack lay on the gurney, panting and straining against the restraints. He was going to have bad bruising on his wrists and ankles. Suddenly he stopped struggling, as he fell back into his own mind. They could hear him muttering, pleading for forgiveness and for another chance. But they couldn't make out exactly what he said until he cried "No! Burn me."
Owen practically had heart failure on hearing him. "Oh god, no. Not that. Anything but that!"
Ianto looked at him in confusion.
Owen waited, ashen faced in horror, for what he feared would come next. He wasn't wrong.
After a few moments, Jack started to scream. The screams of someone in unutterable torment. It went on and on, as Jack convulsed and writhed on the table.
Owen trembled with emotion, as Jack burned for him again.
At that point Joanne ran in the door. She had heard the commotion from the bunker, and thought she might be needed. She looked around the room, seeing the horror on Owen and Ianto's faces. Even Mark was looking pale.
Tosh was beside herself. Tears streaming down her face, she turned to Owen. " Do something," she begged, "you can't leave him like this. For gods sake, give him the heroin!"
Owen was in almost as bad a state as Tosh. "I can't," he cried. "It's dangerous to mix heroin and methadone, and with the methadone in his system it probably wouldn't even work."
"How long before you can give it to him?" Ianto demanded.
"The half life of methadone is 22 hours," Owen stammered. "It's been 6 hours since we gave it to him. It'll be another 16 hours before I'd dare give him heroin."
"Jack can't deal with another 16 hours of this," shouted Ianto. "Didn't you have a backup plan in case the methadone didn't work?"
With a final shriek of utter agony, Jack fell mercifully unconscious.
The team fell briefly silent also. They were all shell shocked, but Owen was practically hyperventilating.
Seeing Owen's distress, Joanne answered Ianto. "We never expected it to get this bad, this quickly. We thought we would have the fall back plan of giving him heroin after 24 hours." She turned to Owen. "We could give him Nalaxone to counteract the methadone."
Owen pulled himself together as much as he could. "No, the Nalaxone would interfere if we tried to give him heroin, so we'd be no better off." He looked around the room. "I take it no one is of the opinion that we don't give him the heroin?"
"Hell no, " snapped Ianto. "No one could kick heroin if they had to go through that. I can barely believe that Jack tried to do it on his own before."
"It explains why he was so desperate to get away from us, and find a dealer," Tosh put in.
"Right, so we're all in agreement. We give Jack heroin as soon as we can, and think again about how to tackle the addiction," Joanne summarised.
They all nodded.
"But what are we going to do for the next 16 hours," Tosh asked.
Jack was stirring again, and beginning to murmur.
"We need to sedate him," Owen declared. "But we can't load him up with sedatives for the whole16 hours. We need another way."
"What about that device that came through the rift last year," suggested Joanne suddenly. " The one that induced unconsciousness with zeta waves. It's totally harmless even if used for days, and it couldn't possibly interfere with giving him the heroin."
"I know it," interjected Ianto. "I know exactly where it is." He rushed off to find it, glad to be doing something, however small, to spare Jack further pain.
By the time he got back, Jack was in the throes of another memory. He was saying over and over, "Ask Stevens and Modine, they know." Ianto was grateful that it was nothing worse.
b_b_b_b_b
Later in the evening, the team, minus Joanne, met in the boardroom. Gwen had returned for the night shift, and had been filled in on what had happened in her absence. Jack was back in his own room, unrestrained and unconscious. A drip to keep him hydrated trailed from his arm. Joanne sat in the chair next to him, listening to the meeting via her comm.
"Well," Owen began, "I think we all agree that, that did not go in any way as planned. None of us understood what effect heroin withdrawal would have on Jack." He swallowed, shuddering, but forced himself to be businesslike. "At this point we don't have any option, except to keep him unconscious until the methadone has dissipated. I suggest that we then wake him, to check if he has got past the withdrawal. It's unlikely, but it would be foolish to give him heroin without checking. Assuming that he's still in the same, manic, state, we give him heroin. Hopefully this will get him back to his previous, addicted, but functional state. We can then discuss ways forward with Jack, and see what he wants to do."
They all agreed. No one wanted Jack to suffer again, as he had done that day.
Owen was about to finish the meeting, and send people home to get some much needed sleep, when Tosh shocked them all by stating bluntly. "I think Jack built the EMP device that disabled the Toclafane, and let General Ingham's men defeat the Master."
Ianto was astounded. "He can't have," he insisted, "he would have said something. Why would he keep quiet about something like that?"
"I don't know, Ianto, but the way he was talking during one of his memories, it really sounded like he was talking about the EMP device. You can check what he said on the CCTV recording."
Ianto's heart lurched suddenly, as he remembered something Jack had said when he was being taken off the Valiant. "He said he helped the resistance," he whispered. "Do you remember? When he was being transferred off the Valiant." He shook his head in despair. "And we all just ignored him."
"I may have misunderstood," said Tosh, "and he surely would have mentioned it at his trial, if it is true."
"We can ask him when he wakes up," Gwen suggested. "He wouldn't have any reason to keep it secret if he did build it."
"OK", we'll do that," agreed Owen. "Now, before we finish, does anyone else have any bombshells to share?"
"There is something that's worrying me," Ianto admitted. "Do you remember what Jack said, after he accosted me in his room. He said that he'd tell Major Stamford anything he wanted to know, in exchange for a fix. Who the hell is Major Stamford, and why would Jack have needed to bargain with him for a fix?"